How to Crop a Video: on iPhone, on Android, in Premiere, in iMovie

How to Crop a Video on iPhone

The iPhone is a widely used phone, and for a good reason. The ease at which the iPhone handles multitasking has endeared it to millions of users. However, although there are a lot of iPhone wannabes in the market, the iPhone uses a distinct operating system (1). 

The iPhone OS differs from some other OS used on various phone products. This unique OS approaches completing tasks on Apple products slightly differently. However, learning how to crop a video on an iPhone is pretty straightforward. 

Cropping a video file on an iPhone can be achieved using the built-in video editing apps (e.g., Photos and iMovie) or third-party editing apps. Using built-in apps for video crops makes completing the task easier. For example, the following section explains how to crop a video on an iPhone using a Photos app.

How to Crop a Video on iPhone Using the Photos App

Here are the easy steps to completing a video crop on iPhone using the photos app. 

• Step 1: Open the Photos App on the iPhone and select the video to crop
• Step 2: Select the edit icon that is located at the top right corner of your screen. A bottom menu will appear
• Step 3: Select the crop icon – it looks like a square with one side crossing over another.
• Step 4: A frame will appear around the video file. Drag the edge to the desired timeline in the video.
• Step 5: Select Done once you are satisfied with the crop.

The other in-built video editing app some individuals may prefer to use is the iMovie app discussed later in this article. 

Now that how to crop a video on an iPhone has been explained, it’s time to discuss “how to crop a video on android.”

Also read: How to Speed up a Video

How to Crop a Video on Android

Android OS and phones are assumed by most to be the opposite of iOS and Apple products. The android operating system is open, so thousands of third-party apps can be used for video edits. 

The Google Play services are common to all android phones, and an app accessible through the Google play services is the Google Photos app that can be used for cropping videos. So the next steps are guides on how to crop a video on Android using the Google Photos app.

• Step 1: Open the Google Photos app and select the video you wish to crop. The video will start playing.
• Step 2: Tap the edit icon, which is the middle icon in the bottom menu.
• Step 3: Tap the crop icon, and a frame will appear around the video 
• Step 4: Select a resizing format in which you want the cropped video to be. The format options are Free, Square, 16:9, 4:3, and 3:2.
• Step 5: Select the save copy icon at the bottom right corner of the screen once you are satisfied with the cropped video.

As mentioned earlier, learning how to crop a video on Android is as easy as ABC. 

Sometimes, learning how to crop a video on iPhone or learning how to crop a video on Android might just not be enough. There are usually scenarios where video edits on the phone will not give satisfactory results. Using a PC for video edits is another ball game entirely, but the directions are straightforward. First off is “how to crop a video on premiere.”

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The quality of cropped videos usually decreases and most especially if a bigger aspect ratio than the original video clip was used.

How to Crop Video in Premiere

The Premiere app is an excellent video editing app for PCs. Although the workings are a little bit more complex than the phone, it is still pretty easy. The Premiere app is not pre-installed on the laptop and must be downloaded if it is not available. So, without much ado, the following steps are a guide on how to crop a video in Premiere.    

• Step 1: Locate and select the premiere pro icon to start the software
• Step 2: Drag the video file to be cropped to the premiere pro timeline. Another way to access the video file is to select the control menu and then ‘import.’
• Step 3: Locate and open the video effects tab. The video effects tab is usually beside the projects tab. 
• Step 4: Locate the ‘crop’ icon by searching for it in the search bar in ‘effects’ or opening the ‘transform’ folder, a subfolder of the video effects tab.
• Step 5: Drag the crop effect to the previously uploaded video on the timeline
• Step 6: Manipulate the values that appear beside the top, bottom, right, and left tags in the “crop” options till a satisfactory result is achieved. Another way to crop the video is to use the slider option by simply dragging the slider over the part of the video you want to chop off. 
• Step 7: Export the cropped video file.

Learning how to crop a video in Premiere gives individuals an edge in video edits because so many manipulations can be completed with the crop effects on the premiere pro app. 

How to Crop a Video on iMovie

Since this write-up just addressed how to crop a video in Premiere, which is one of the best editing apps on a PC, it is only ideal to give instructions on how to crop a video on iMovie for Macbook users. Therefore, the following steps are simple guides on how to crop a video on iMovie.

• Step 1: Open the iMovie app and select the ‘add’ icon that displays ‘create new.
• Step 2: Select ‘movie’ from the dropdown that shows from the ‘add’ icon.
• Step 3: Now select the ‘import media’ menu and choose the video to be cropped.
• Step 4: Select the crop icon from the menu that appears at the top part of the screen. Now select the crop option that appears at the top-right corner of the screen. 
• Step 5: Resize and move the frame until a satisfactory result is achieved. 
• Step 6: Select the checkmark (blue color) located at the top right corner of the screen once the crop is completed.

The iMovie app is also available on other Apple products like the iPhone and iPad. However, the iMovie app on these apple products requires a slightly different approach to cropping video clips. These next steps explain how to crop to a video on iMovie on the iPhone or iPad. 

• Step 1: Open the iMovie app on the iPhone.
• Step 2: Select the ‘projects’ menu at the top of the screen and select the ‘add’ icon.
• Step 3: Select ‘movie’ from the window that pops up.
• Step 4: Select the video clip to be cropped and then select the ‘create movie’ option at the bottom of the screen.
• Step 5: Tap the video timeline at the bottom screen to display options.
• Step 5: Select the ‘pinch to zoom video’ option at the top right corner of the screen to start cropping. Zoom in and out to adjust the video to the frame that appears on the screen.   
• Step 6: Select the ‘Done’ button when the clip has been cropped to satisfaction. 
• Step 7: Select the ‘upload’ option and then save to add the cropped video to the photo library.

Also read: How to Compress a Video on iPhone

Aspect Ratios

Aspect ratio is the ratio of the video or picture width to its height(2). Aspect ratios are usually expressed in formats such as 16:9 or 3:4. 

Every video has an aspect ratio, and editing will most likely alter the aspect ratio. The popular platforms people do usually upload their videos also to have their ideal aspect ratios. On the journey of learning how to crop a video, knowing the aspect ratio the individual wants the video to come out in is equally as important. 

Some of the apps used in cropping videos provide options on the final aspect ratio of the cropped video. At the same time, some only have a particular aspect ratio in which cut videos can be produced.